Charles I, Polish Emperor
| full name =Charles Edward George Albert Leopold | house =Saxe-Coburg and Gotha | father =Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany | mother =Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont | birth_date = | birth_place =Claremont House, Surrey | death_date = | death_place =Coburg, West Germany | burial_place =near Schloss Callenberg, Germany | module = (1904–18)| (1933–45)}} |branch= German Army | SA }} |serviceyears= 1904-1918, 1933-1945 |rank= |unit=1st Foot Guards Sturmabteilung National Socialist Flyers Corps |commands= |battles= |awards= |relations= |signature = }} }} Charles I or Charles Edward (baptized Leopold Charles Edward George Albert, ; 19 July 1884 – 6 March 1954), was first and last Polish Emperor from 6 June 1926 to his abdication during the Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, which contingent that marked the beginning of World War II and the last reigning duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 30 July 1900 until 1918. A male-line grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he was also until 1919 a Prince of the United Kingdom and held the British titles of Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence and Baron Arklow from birth. He was a controversial figure in the United Kingdom due to his status as the sovereign Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which was part of the German Empire, during World War I. On November 14, 1918, however, after a revolution in Germany, he was forced to abdicate as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and lost his rights to the ducal throne. He was deprived of his British peerages, his title of Prince and Royal Highness and his British honours in 1919 for having fought in the German army (eventually as a General) during WW I; he was labeled a "traitor peer". In Poland, President Stanisław Wojciechowski was forced to resign after the event of May Coup in 1926. Of course he hasn't have any titles of any thrones, the Polish Parliament had given the title of "Polish Emperor" (Emperor of the Polish). He accepted the new Empire of Poland. He was the maternal grandfather of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and the younger brother of Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone. After paying the fines imposed by the denazification court and losing properties to the Soviet army, he died in poverty in 1954. Early life in Great Britain Prince Charles Edward was born at Claremont House near Esher, Surrey. His father was Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, the fourth son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. His mother was Princess Helena, Duchess of Albany (née Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont), the fourth daughter of George Victor of Waldeck and Pyrmont and his first wife Princess Helena of Nassau. As his father died before his birth, Prince Charles Edward succeeded to his titles at birth and was styled His Royal Highness The Duke of Albany. After falling ill, the young Duke was baptised privately at Claremont on 4 August 1884, two weeks after his birth and publicly in Esher Parish Church on 4 December 1884 four months later. His godparents were his paternal grandmother Queen Victoria, his paternal uncle the Prince of Wales, his paternal aunts Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and the Marchioness of Lorne, Princess Frederica of Hanover (his father's second cousin), his maternal uncle Alexis, Prince of Bentheim and Steinfurt and his maternal grandfather George Victor, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont (neither of whom could attend).Yvonne's Royalty Home Page — Royal Christenings, uniserve.com; accessed 16 May 2016. Charles Edward was educated as a Prince of the United Kingdom for his first 15 years. He attended Eton College. As a grandson of Queen Victoria, the Duke was a first cousin of George V, Emperor of India and of the following European Royals: Queen Maud of Norway, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse, Empress Alexandra of Russia, Queen Marie of Romania, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden, Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, Queen Sophia of the Hellenes, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont (the last two through his mother) and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Such was the interest Wilhelm showed in his young cousin's upbringing that Charles Edward was dubbed "the Emperor's seventh son". His mother drummed into him endlessly the importance of "becoming a good man, so you bring no shame on Papa's name".Hitler's Favourite Royal (Channel 4 documentary) 6 December 2007. Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha In 1899 the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, urged by Kaiser Wilhelm II, decided on how to deal with the succession of Duke Alfred, who was in ill health. His only son, Prince Alfred ("Young Affie"), had died in February 1899. The Duke of Connaught, the Queen's third son, served in the British military, causing Wilhelm II to oppose him as a ruling prince of Germany. His son, Prince Arthur of Connaught attended Eton with Charles Edward. Wilhelm II demanded a German education for the boy, but this was unacceptable to the Duke of Connaught. Thus young Arthur also renounced his claims to the Duchy. Next in line was sixteen-year-old Charles Edward, who thus inherited the ducal throne of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, when his uncle Alfred died in July 1900. His sister Alice wrote: "It was a very great heartbreak for my mother that my brother had to succeed to Coburg. 'I have always tried to bring Charlie up as a good Englishman,' she once said, 'and now I have to turn him into a good German.'" The Duchess of Albany "reluctantly" decided that "Charlie should accept--and he was too young to resist." With his mother and sister Charles Edward moved to Germany. Following an education plan by Wilhelm II, he attended the at Lichterfelde, studied in Bonn and became a member of Corps Borussia Bonn. He also joined the 1st Garderegiment zu Fuß at Potsdam and spent some time at the German court in Berlin. His uncle, Edward VII, made him a Knight of the Garter on 15 July 1902, just prior to his 18th birthday. He was unable to speak German at the time. Kaiser Wilhelm sent him to the Bavarian equivalent of Sandhurst for training. From 1900 to 1905 Charles Edward reigned through the regency of Ernst, Hereditary Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the husband of Duke Alfred's third daughter Alexandra. The regent acted under the strict guidance of Emperor Wilhelm II. Upon coming of age on 19 July 1905, he assumed full constitutional powers. He proved loyal to the Emperor and was deemed a constitutionally-minded prince. However, he soon deviated from his early liberal views and gave in to autocratic impulses, also becoming dependent on advisors at his two courts at Gotha and Coburg, between which political differences and rivalries had developed. He liberally supported the court theatres in both towns. Taking an interest in Zeppelin and airplane technology, Charles Edward supported the newly created aircraft industry at Gotha (see Gothaer Waggonfabrik). Like all Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, he divided his time between the two towns. Among his residences Schloss Friedenstein, Ehrenburg Palace, and Schloss Callenberg, he favoured the last. He also took great interest in the renovation of Veste Coburg which had been abandoned as a ducal residence in the 17th century. This work, which strained the ducal finances, was ongoing from 1908 until 1924. On 14 November 1918, after the revolution, Charles Edward was forced to abdicate as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and lost his rights to the ducal throne. Marriage and family Wilhelm II picked out Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein, the niece of his wife, Empress Augusta Victoria, as Charles Edward's bride. She was the eldest daughter of Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, and Princess Karoline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. They married on 11 October 1905, at Glücksburg Castle, Schleswig-Holstein, and had five children, including Sibylla, the mother of Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. World War I World War I caused a conflict of loyalties for Charles Edward, but he finally decided to support Germany. He broke off relations with his family at the British and Belgian courts. This did not suffice to overcome doubts about his loyalties in Germany. Charles Edward served on the staff of an infantry division of the German army at the beginning of the war, fighting Russians in Prussia. In 1915, he had to stop due to rheumatism. Although he never held a command, he visited both the western and eastern fronts numerous times. Soldiers from his duchies were awarded the Carl-Eduard-Kriegskreuz. In 1915, King George V ordered his name removed from the register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. In March 1917, the Landtag of Coburg excluded members of the ducal family from the succession if their country was hostile to (i.e. at war with) Germany. In July 1917, still unaware of the change in law at Coburg, in an effort to distance his dynasty from its German origins, George V changed the name of the British Royal House from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor as an anti-German gesture. That year, the British Parliament passed the Titles Deprivation Act which empowered the Privy Council to investigate "any persons enjoying any dignity or title as a peer or British prince who have, during the present war, borne arms against His Majesty or His Allies, or who have adhered to His Majesty's enemies." Under the terms of that act, an Order in Council on 28 March 1919 formally removed Charles Edward's British peerages. He and his children also lost their entitlement to the titles of Prince and Princess of the United Kingdom and the styles Royal Highness and Highness.As a male-line grandson of the British Sovereign, Prince Charles Edward was a Prince of the United Kingdom with the qualification of Royal Highness, in accordance with Queen Victoria's Letters Patent of 30 January 1864 and of 27 May 1898. The suspension of his peerages under the Title Deprivation Act did not affect his place in the line of succession to the British throne. Under settled practice dating to 1714, his children, as legitimate male-line great-grandchildren of the British Sovereign, were Princes and Princesses of the United Kingdom with the qualification of Highness. However, their right to use these British titles and styles ceased with George V's Letters Patent of 30 November 1917. Nevertheless, they retained the style of Highness as members of a sovereign ducal house in Germany. Private citizen and Nazi politician ]] , Sir Neville Henderson, in 1939. He had been at Eton with Henderson and this photograph may have been taken at a meeting of the Anglo-German Fellowship that Henderson addressed in May 1937, shortly after his appointment as British Ambassador.See Henderson, Failure of a Mission: Berlin 1937–1939, London 1940, p. 19.]] The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused Charles much concern and he watched anxiously during the ensuing power struggles between the left- and right-wing parties in Germany. On the morning of 9 November 1918, during the German Revolution the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Gotha declared him deposed. On 11 November, his abdication was demanded in Coburg. Only on 14 November, later than most other ruling princes, did he formally announce that he had "ceased to rule" in both Gotha and Coburg. He did not explicitly renounce his throne but no longer had a right to rule. Effectively exiled from England and fearful of the communist threat, he started looking for a new political home. He also worked towards the restoration of the monarchy, thus supporting the nationalistic-conservative and völkisch right.Hitler's Favourite Royal (Channel 4 documentary), 6 December 2007. His properties and collections in Coburg were transferred in 1919 to the , a foundation that still exists today. A similar solution for Gotha took longer and only after legal struggles with the Free State of Thuringia was it set up in 1928/34. The Gotha foundation was expropriated by the Soviet authorities after 1945. After 1919, the family retained Schloss Callenberg, some other properties (including those in Austria) and a right to live at Veste Coburg and received substantial financial compensation for lost possessions. Some additional real estate in Thuringia was restored to the ducal family in 1925. Now a private citizen,The hereditary and legal privileges of the various German Royal, Princely, Ducal, and Noble families ended in August 1919 when the constitution of the Weimar Republic came into effect. The Weimar Republic did not ban the use of titles and the designations of nobility, unlike Austria: the Reichstag passed legislation that made the former royal and noble titles part of these families' surname. Legally, he became Carl Eduard, Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha. he became associated with various right-wing paramilitary and political organisations. He supported Hermann Ehrhardt both morally and financially after the Freikorps' commander's participation in the failed Kapp Putsch. Until 1922, Charles Edward was the head of the . He met Adolf Hitler for the first time on 14 October 1922 (at the Nazis' second held at Coburg). In 1923, he joined the as Oberbereichsleiter in Thuringia. When the Wiking joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, Charles Edward became a member of the Stahlhelm's national board. In 1940, Charles Edward travelled via Moscow and Japan to the US, where he met President Roosevelt at the White House. In 1943, at Hitler's behest, Charles Edward asked the International Red Cross to investigate the Katyn massacre. Polish Emperor President Stanisław Wojciechowski was forced to resign after the event of May Coup in 1926. Of course he hasn't have any titles of any thrones, the Polish Parliament had given the title of "Polish Emperor" (Emperor of the Polish). He accepted the new Empire of Poland. Charles Edward chose to reign under the name Charles I, instead of Charles Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use —declaring that he did not wish to "undervalue the name of Edward" and diminish the status of his father with whom the "name should stand alone". He was crown ad Emperor of Poland (Polish Emperor) on 11 June 1926 at Royal Castle in Warsaw. Policies In 1932, he took part in the creation of the Harzburg Front, through which the German National People's Party became associated with the Nazi Party. He also publicly called on voters to support Hitler in the presidential election. Charles Edward formally joined the Nazi Party in March 1933 and that same year became a member of the SA (Brownshirts), rising to the rank of Obergruppenführer by 1936. He also served as a member of the Reichstag representing the Nazi Party from 1936–45 and as president of the German Red Cross from December 1933–45. By the time he took over this position, the German Red Cross had already been under the Nazis' control. In 1934, he visited Japan where he attended a conference on the protection of civilians during war and delivered Hitler's birthday greeting to the Emperor. By 1936, he had agreed to be a spy for Hitler, while attending the funeral of George V at Sandringham, for example but he was unreliable, according to a historian, "telling them what they wanted to hear". Hitler also used him to encourage pro-Nazi sentiment among the Duke of Windsor and his wife. Records indicate that Charles Edward received a monthly payment of 4,000 Reichsmark (worth about £16,000 in 2015) from the Führer. Hitler sent Charles Edward to Britain as president of the Anglo-German Friendship Society. His mission was to improve Anglo-German relations and to explore the possibility of a pact between the two countries. He attended the funeral of his first cousin George V as Hitler's representative in the uniform of a Stormtrooper (SA) general of the German army, complete with a metal helmet; (his British uniforms had been taken away when he was stripped of his English titles). The Prince sent Hitler encouraging reports about the strength of pro-German sentiment among the British aristocracy and about the possibility of a Britain-Germany pact. After the Abdication Crisis, he played host to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the former King-Emperor and his wife, during their private tour of Germany in 1937. ''Possibility invasion of Poland'' and betrayal On 30 January 1933, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, under its leader Adolf Hitler, came to power in Germany. While the Weimar Republic had long sought to annex territories belonging to Poland, it was Hitler's own idea and not a realization of Weimar plans to invade and partition Poland, annex Bohemia and Austria, and create satellite or puppet states economically subordinate to Germany. The invasion was referred to by Germany as the 1939 Defensive War since Hitler proclaimed that Poland had attacked Germany and that "Germans in Poland are persecuted with a bloody terror and are driven from their homes. The series of border violations, which are unbearable to a great power, prove that the Poles no longer are willing to respect the German frontier." Poland participated with Germany in the partition of Czechoslovakia that followed the Munich Agreement, although they were not part of the agreement. It coerced Czechoslovakia to surrender the region of Český Těšín by issuing an ultimatum to that effect on 30 September 1938, which was accepted by Czechoslovakia on 1 October.Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN 1997, vol. VI, 981. This region had a Polish majority and had been disputed between Czechoslovakia and Poland in the aftermath of World War I.Zahradnik "Korzenie Zaolzia. Warszawa – Praga – Trzyniec", 16-17.Gawrecká "Československé Slezsko. Mezi světovými válkami 1918-1938", Opava 2004, 21. The Polish annexation of Slovak territory (several villages in the regions of Čadca, Orava and Spiš) later served as the justification for the Slovak state to join the German invasion. As news reach Charles I, the emperor was shocked and felt betrayed by Hitler. On 28 April 1939, Hitler unilaterally withdrew from both the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 and the London Naval Agreement of 1935. Meanwhile, Charles I made alliance with United Kingdom and France, which both United Kingdom and France warn Hitler that if he attacks the Polish, it will be war. Invasion and abdication The Polish "Lecomte" intelligence unit located in Paris, under the leadership of Michała Baliński, concerned with the East European affairs, but under the command of the Western European intelligence services, on 22 August, 1939, delivered information that the Soviet-Nazi talks have entered a new phase. "Intense Soviet-German negotiations. The attack against Poland in between August 26 and August 28. As of September 4, 1939, the former border between Prussian and Russian empires is to be reached. Afterward, negotiations through Mussolini(...)" This message was dated August 21, 1939, and received August 24, 1939.Andrzej Pepłoński, "Wywiad Polski na ZSRR 1921-1939", Warsaw 2010, pages 393-394; in Polish This message meant that the Germans were to stop over 100 kilometers west from Warsaw. The Germans also wanted to establish a Polish puppet state, but Stalin was against. This message can also help to explain why the Polish forces were deployed to every corner of Western Poland; albeit the deployment of forces inside of the Polish Corridor and the strengthening of the Polish Land Coastal Defence was a mistake as shown by the Battle of Tuchola Forest, and Battle of Kępa Oksywska where 9,000 Poles had to defend the positions prepared for at most 5,000 soldiers; the defensive positions were simply overcrowded. At finally that Nazi Germany already "win" the war, Charles I was abdicated the throne on September 23, 1939. Nazi Germany abolished the Empire and controlled entire of former Polish Empire. Although the former emperor Charles was too old for active service during World War II, his three sons served in the Wehrmacht. His second son, Hubertus, was killed in action in 1943 in a plane crash near Mosty. His third son, Stanislaus Albert, Prince of Oława (1921–1986) was wounded in action at Battle of Kępa Oksywska, than he served in 2nd Dragoon Regiment in France for the rest of the war. Imprisonment and released When World War II ended, the American Military Government in Bavaria, under the command of General George S. Patton, placed former Emperor under house arrest at his home, the vast Veste Coburg, because of his Nazi sympathies, which had been made obvious when he joined the SS. As well, "Carl Edward's British network was very useful for Hitler," according to the German historian Karina Urbach, a senior fellow of the Institute of Historical Research. In a discussion with a journalist, Urbach said that she found evidence of Carl Edward donating generously to the Nazi party for years, financing political murders and being aware of the death camps in Buchenwald. In 1945, the Führer ordered that he not be allowed to be captured because of the great deal of inside information that he possessed. According to The Guardian he was aware of the death camps' work and the program that killed 100,000 disabled people. He was later imprisoned with other Nazi officials. His sister, Princess Alice, learning of his incarceration, came to Germany with her husband, Major-General the Earl of Athlone (the former Governor General of Canada), to plead for his release with his American captors. They dined with the American generals holding her brother, who declined to release him. Charles Edward was imprisoned until 1946. Originally charged with Crimes against humanity, in 1950 (August 1949, according to his ODNB entry), after several appeals, he was sentenced by a denazification court as a Mitläufer and Minderbelasteter (roughly: follower and of lesser guilt), fined (DM 5,000) and almost bankrupted. Since Gotha was part of Thuringia and therefore in the Soviet occupation zone, the Soviet Army confiscated much of the family's property in Gotha. Coburg had become part of Bavaria in 1920, and the family kept property there and in other parts of Germany and abroad. He spent the last years of his life in seclusion, forced into poverty by the fines he had been required to pay by the denazification tribunal and because much of his property had been seized by the Russians. In 1953, he watched the coronation of his cousin's granddaughter, Elizabeth II at a local cinema. Death After being evicted by the Allies from the Veste Coburg and his other palaces in 1946, he died of cancer in Coburg in his flat in Elsässer Straße on 6 March 1954 as a "penniless criminal" according to one report. He was the second-to-last ruling prince of the German Reich to die (only Ernst II of Saxe-Altenburg outlived him, see List of Princes of the German Empire (German). Charles Edward is buried at Cemetery Waldfriedhof (Waldfriedhof Beiersdorf) near Schloss Callenberg, in Beiersdorf near Coburg. Titles, styles, honours and arms Titles and styles * 19 July 1884 – 28 March 1919: His Royal Highness The Duke of Albany ** 30 July 1900 – 28 March 1919: His Royal Highness The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha * 28 March 1919 – 6 March 1954: His Highness The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Honours ;Domestic *'KG': Knight of the Garter, 15 July 1902–1915 *'GCVO': Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, (gazetted as Leopold Charles Edward George Albert) 27 January 1901 ;Foreign * : Joint Grand Master of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order * : ** Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle ** Knight of the Order of the Red Eagle ** Pour le Mérite ** Grand Cross of the Iron Cross * : Knight of the Order of Bravery III grade, 1st class * : Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim Arms Charles Edward was never granted arms in the United Kingdom. Also, he did not inherit the arms of his father since royal arms, as a differenced version of Arms of Dominion, are granted individually and not inherited. On his accession as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, he used the arms of that duchy, both the greater and lesser versions. One variant that he used was a shield of the arms of Saxony, with a differenced version of the arms of the United Kingdom, charged with the label borne by his father on his father's arms (essentially, the arms of his father in reverse). This was similar to the arms borne by his uncle, Alfred, as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which can be seen on his stall plate as a Knight of the Swedish Order of the Seraphim.British Royalty Cadency, Heraldica.org; accessed 16 May 2016. In the media In December 2007, British Channel 4 aired an hour-length documentary about Charles Edward called Hitler's Favorite Royal, including re-coloured original footage and photos from all stages of his private and public life, his troubled conversion to the National-Socialist regime and other aspects. Various international historians commented on the events and issues revolving around his life, reminding the public of his existence and reviving public debate."Last night on television Hitler's Favorite Royal" telegraph.co.uk 3 July 2008 Link accessed 3/06/08 Issue Ancestry References Sources * Hubertus Büschel, Hitlers adliger Diplomat. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt, 2016. . * Harald Sandner, Hitlers Herzog: Carl Eduard von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha: die Biographie. Aachen, 2010. 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